


there is tension between us, but i don't know of what kind

by atitforatat



Series: the romance series [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: First Love, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Ushijima Wakatoshi - centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23277166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atitforatat/pseuds/atitforatat
Summary: Ushijima had volleyball, Satori and his family. Where could love fit exactly?
Relationships: Tendou Satori/Ushijima Wakatoshi
Series: the romance series [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673896
Comments: 6
Kudos: 129





	there is tension between us, but i don't know of what kind

**Author's Note:**

> Heeey!!  
> This is the first fic of the Romance series, in which each story is based off of one song from Romance, Camila Cabello's last album.  
> This was based off of [Shameless](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cNao-p6DnA).
> 
> This was a hard one to write, but I liked the result a lot, hope you guys like it too.  
> This is unbeta'd and english is not my native language, so please warn me about any mistakes you encounter ^^  
> Enjoy!!

Every once in a while, when Wakatoshi took a little more time in the showers after practice, he would listen to the other boy’s chat, especially the second and first years. At times, their topics were very similar to what him and some of the third years talked. Volleyball and sometimes _manga_ , when Satori was near. But, more often than not, the younger ones talked about girls and which of them they liked. It was somewhat interesting to see their faces getting red like tomatoes without them doing any physically exhausting activity. Ushijima didn’t understand how girls could have caused it when there wasn’t any in the premises though.

Satori and Ohira would laugh their “asses off”, as Tendou liked to put, while watching them. “How beautiful it is young love” Reon would say even though he was only two years older and in the same age group in age pyramids. And one of the few third years dating. Wakatoshi only told him this once and they both laughed again. “Toshi-kun, you are the funniest without even trying. It’s unfair to us, mere mortals.”, it made Ushijima get warm instead in spite of him knowing Satori was being sarcastic. It was a weird occurrence left to be later analyzed, but it never got to be truly thought over.

Nonetheless, Ushijima didn’t understand why they laughed nor why the subjects of the laugher got flustered. Yamagata talked about love and girls with Goshiki and never got overwhelmed like those boys. Goshiki did get red, but he got red for anything because he was _e_ _xcitable_ , so it didn’t count. Yamagata didn’t laugh at him though. Were they talking in the wrong way and needed Yamagata’s advice? It would make sense; a girl even came to cheer Goshikin on after those talks (more like monologues now that Wakatoshi thought about it). But Hayato was truly engaged in romance nonetheless, being Goshiki’s or not. It didn’t make any sense honestly.

For Wakatoshi, volleyball was the most important thing in life. He also liked other things, like animals and plants, but they were never so important as volley, and he understood that other people would have other interests. Satori loved his _manga_ and _anime_ more than anything in the world, he played volleyball because it was fun. Ushijima thought _mangas_ were fun too, but volleyball was the loved thing for him. Their symmetrically opposite taste was funny. Bit curious too.

Ohira also liked plants and books besides volleyball. He loved reading in general and it also made sense. But Yamagata loved romance, not the book or movie kind, but the real thing. And it was weird. How could your main interest be two (or more, as Hayato once taught him about _polyamory_ ) people falling in love and doing things because of that? Especially in those cases which you weren’t even one of those involved. These cases were, apparently, Hayato’s favorites too.

Goshiki’s romantic life wasn’t the first one the libero meddled with, nor would be the last. He helped Shirabu with confessing his feelings to Semi and helped some of the cheerleading girls to talk to some of the first and second years. Every time a new couple appeared, the third years knew their libero probably had something to do with it. As it happens, some of them started calling Hayato the eagle with heart arrows (Tendou was obviously the one behind the silly nickname and when confronted about it he was proud that his “signature was so obvious”). It was a bit funny, but Ushijima still didn’t understand it, so he never joined their little joke.

He never thought about “matters of the heart”, it was never brought to his attention the importance of it, so he wasn’t _really_ curious about it. Regardless of it, he was unquestionably capable of saying which people he thought beautiful to his aesthetic tastes and which he didn’t, but Wakatoshi wasn’t used to expose this sort of opinion since his father taught him his straightforward way could offend some people.

His father did, now that the wing spiker thought about it, talk about girls with him in his earlier age; it was shallow stuff like “You’ll find a girl you’ll love and she’ll love you” or something along those lines. His mother and grandmother didn’t seem to mind his love life and never addressed the subject either except for thrown out references and such that Ushijima was never aware of until he got older.

Nonetheless, after he entered high school, and notably after Satori befriended him, the relationship topic seemed to subtly enter itself in the most common conversations between his family and him. He was aware that, as far as subtlety went, him and his mother weren’t good at it, so he knew exactly when she tried to tackle this topic.

His grandmother, in the other hand, mastered the art of being subtle so Wakatoshi couldn’t pinpoint when she started talking about it. But Satori’s visits were a trigger. The first time he came, Wakatoshi himself was confused. “I only came by to say hi since I was near and Toshi-kun said he lived around here, don’t mind me Semisemi, I won’t intrude in his life.” He apparently was ending a phone call with Eita before intending to ring their bell, but never got the chance to since his mother was just arriving and asked him who he was.

“I’m Tendou Satori, Wakatoshi’s club teammate. Just passed by to say hi. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Ushijima.”

They weren’t close friends at that time, and they were also in the middle of school summer recess. It was their first year in high school and Ushijima was never able to forget that day even after dozens of Satori’s visits throughout the later years.

By that time, Wakatoshi didn’t remember the last time one of his colleagues came by his house, he never invited anyone but seldom a few colleagues would come by with their mothers, who usually knew his mother or grandma, and they tried playing or talking to him. His quiet nature didn’t help them at it, his mother would always say in the closest way she could get to a _teasing_ manner. None of the Ushijimas minded Wakatoshi’s behavior though.

His mother was quite surprised that someone was close enough to Ushijima to know where they lived, and even more chocked that Wakatoshi himself informed the address. “Don’t be rude to your _friend_ , Toshi-kun. Please, come in, darling, make yourself at home.”, said his grandmother. As opposed to his mother, his grandma was less stern and liked to be playful. The first times Satori talked to him, Ushijima would always remember her; just as with the redhead boy, it was never clear if his grandmother was joking around or being serious unless she directly said so, and even so Wakatoshi would be confuse sometimes, with the both of them.

For a “passing by to say hi”, Satori actually said way more. His grandmother asked him how was school, if he had plans, how Wakatoshi’s attitude was like. His mother even baked them some sweets after knowing Tendou’s sweet tooth. Ushijima never knew how to explain his impressions of that day, except for understanding it was somehow important. Like, even his mother was softened up by Satori’s demeanor, so it probably had some meaning he didn’t understand yet.

He showed the whole house to Tendou and even named each plant he took care of in their garden. The reason for it, he didn’t know either. “I’ve never seen you talk so much, Toshi-kun. I think I’ll come by more often hohoho.”

That was the first time the brown-haired recognized Satori was being somehow serious without someone else having to tell him. He didn’t know how to respond to it, so he just left silence stretched comfortably between them. Satori was always smiling, but his smile that day seemed different, like rare in its own way.

After Satori said goodbye and promised to come back again before school term restarted, his grandmother started talking about her late husband with a small smile and adoring eyes Wakatoshi only ever saw when she talked about him.

When thinking about love, he realized that might have been the first time he saw its direct signs.

Some months and a good number of visits later, his mother was more and more direct about his love life. Her way of talking about it confused him more than any other thing simply because she talked in _supportive_ ways. Like encouraging him to something.

Some weekends, when he came home from the school dormitory, she would have his favorite dishes and, mixed with them, Satori’s favorite sweets. Like she was expecting him to come by every weekend. Not that he didn’t appear in most of them, but it was still curious how she would always be ready.

In third year, when he and Satori were the closest of friends and even the other boys from their year talked with Ushijima naturally, and he started listening to some of what another boys talked, Wakatoshi opened his eyes to something that was apparently asleep his whole life: love. It wasn’t like guys didn’t discuss it in his previous years; he recalled even kids talking about their crushes in middle school, but never got the time for it. He was always playing volleyball with his father, later with his club and sometimes by himself, and the free time he had his home garden to take care with his grandmother and his school duties too. There wasn’t ever space to think about love, liking or any other thing, so Ushijima never even thought about what he _liked._

The more the people he knew started to move towards this _force_ , the more Ushijima felt self-conscious about it. He didn’t know anything about it, and he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to.

Between the third years, only him, Satori and Soekawa weren’t in a current relationship. Soekawa apparently had a crush, but she was older, and he didn’t have the nerve to tell her. Or so Satori said, it could always be another one of his weird jokes. Wakatoshi never needed to tell him that, since Tendou always said he made this “confused and lost puppy face that left it clear you’re lost but being silently polite, Toshi-kun". And the redheaded himself never commented on anything. They navigated these waters very carefully. It was the only matter they threaded like this.

Satori sometimes would joke about Eita being _smitten_ , but as soon as the white haired setter threatened to talk the blocker would change topics and Eita would end up with a triumphant smile, which always failed to make sense to Ushijima, since, from what he understood about Satori’s games, you had to embarrass someone to win and Satori never looked like an embarrassed person would. He always got reddish though. And it was just another thing for Wakatoshi to put aside in his mental box of curious things that were related to Satori.

He would openly discuss anyone’s romantic life and have fun over it, but his and Wakatoshi’s were never addressed by him. Satori was actually subtle when touching this particular point. It intrigued the dark-haired boy more than his own love life. Satori always intrigued him generally speaking, but later his curiosity and confusion were growing in a faster pace.

His confusion was due to many factors, including, but not only: his own thoughts on love, his taste in love and his mother on growing support to a relationship Ushijima doesn’t even know his counterpart name. Because she stopped the careful act altogether and was simply giving encouraging smiles, sending him extra food and “tell him I said hi”. It was getting a bit desperate. The constant reinforcement of the “he/him” pronouns were a story Ushijima wasn’t sure he wanted to face, though he was slowly starting to comprehend why.

He wasn’t as dense as most people believed he was. Satori never took him as a dull person, it was crystal clear to the redheaded, and Wakatoshi appreciated it. He never spent unnecessary energy correcting people about their perceptions of him, but he was very aware of his demeanor. He knew he didn’t catch that many social clues and sometimes was unintentionally rude, but he wasn’t stupid. And Satori understood it perfectly because he was the perfect opposite, but it wasn’t important to his current train of thought.

What mattered right now was that Ushijima knew he found some girls to be beautiful and physically pleasing, but never found one for whom he felt other things beside aesthetic appreciation. He never put much thinking in it because everyone told him the right woman would appear someday, so it was probably okay for him not to find someone who attracted him at that time. And, of course, he knew there were people who liked same genre people or liked multiple genres, and it was all good as long as you felt nice with it. But no one ever caught him like this, so he never any subject to analyze his preferences.

Reon said once that knowing he liked Hayato was easy because his dreams told him so. Ushijima never had dreams that told him anything about people. His dreams were always volleyball related, even his scariest ones (which usually showed that orange haired ball of raw energy and his friend with glasses), and usually those were just rewinds of some remarkable moment in a previous match.

However, when a dream did differ from it, it was usually caused by some weird _manga_ or _anime_ Satori suggested him , like that creepy _Elfen_ _Li-something_ that got him dreaming with “cotton candy pink” haired monsters and redheaded heroes, that seemed a lot like Satori, for almost three days, even though there weren’t any characters resembling to the blocker nor having cherry locks. But the bizarre dreams were worth it sometimes, since most of the opening songs were good companions to his daily jogs.

Not that Wakatoshi had the time to effectively listen to them. Since their second year, Tendou started tagging along without ever saying a word about it and Ushijima simply let him. With the blocker by his side, he would run at a slower pace, so the other boy could keep up, but go over longer distances since Tendou’s endless rambling would distract him from tiredness better than any breathing technique, and also prohibit him of using his _air_ _dots_. It was funny how they never talked about it, but it worked perfectly for both.

One day, he was checking things before starting his run and Satori simply appeared out of nowhere throwing him a loud “Good morning, Toshi-kun" while smiling and waiting for him. He never asked the olive brown-haired boy to slow down just as Ushijima never thought about doing it, it simply happened. And Tendou still complained about stretching before and after practice, but never said a word about it when stretching with Ushijima nor grumbled about the kilometres they did.

Ushijima also didn’t mind not listening to the openings, when in a good mood Satori would even tell him to choose one and he would sing it for him while running. It was... sweet? If sweet was at least the right word for it. But sweet didn’t sound right to things that happened between friends. And the word choice was always throwing him in the disorientated state again.

He and Satori were friends, so everything they did fell into the “friends” category by logic, but sometimes what Ushijima and his other friends did didn’t match what he did with Satori. Like the love discussion. As soon as Hayato and Reon could get Wakatoshi alone, they would bring up these matters. Satori, however, walked through them cautiously and always ready to retreat. He seemed afraid, but the wing spiker didn’t have enough knowledge or experience to help him through it so he always chose to stay at Satori’s pace, just like in their jogs.

But their progress was close to none and Ushijima really needed to come to a closure. His mom kept giving expectant looks and his grandma seemed ready to give everything up. He wished they would simply say something so he could get over it. Who they thought he was dating and why they thought so? When he commented it with Satori, the boy looked anxious. He asked who their suspect was and, when Wakatoshi said he also didn’t know, he relaxed a bit, but his movements remained strained and his face less playful for the rest of the day.

Ushijima never brought the subject up after this. He wanted more answers before starting new questions he wasn’t sure he could answer, the most pressing one being his own sexuality but by that time he already had some idea about what it was. No one ever caught his attention like volleyball did, but some beauties called to him more than others and in different ways too.

He was afraid of labelling himself as something he didn’t understand yet, because, after all, it was only months since he opened his eyes to this. When the next free weekend came by, Ushijima chose to talk to his family. They were already throwing him all kinds of hints, so he could make some of them useful.

He was afraid of bringing it up and didn’t know how to. His family was very traditional in many senses and his mother was especially rigid, but she was also a good and comprehensible mother. He didn’t doubt about his grandmother support for even a second, but still breathed one more time before assembling both in the main room.

“Mother. Grandmother. I think I might have homosexual inclination, but I’m still not sure about it. I'd like your help in finding this about me.”

“Oh, my silly grandson, what makes you unsure about it? You didn’t need such a formal annunciation. We thought you were already dating Satori and only hiding from us afraid of our disapproval, which your clearly ain’t getting. We support every decision you make as long as it makes you happy.”

Well.

This was... unexpected? Surprising? He didn’t know which word described it better. He just never thought of Satori like that. “Satori? Tendou Satori, you must mean?”

“Yes, darling, I’ve been sending you his favorite sweets for months now as a hint for you guys to assume it. But I believed we misunderstood?” His mom was just as lost now, looking between him and his grandma waiting for an answer. Grandma was happy to oblige, apparently.

“Son, you just recently thought about love, right? Have you ever thought about love _and_ Satori? The two topics together? I fear you must be suffering from a severe case of obliviousness to your own feelings.” The full picture didn’t fit in Wakatoshi’s mind right there, but it started to make sense. The cogs in his head started to fit in each other’s spaces and work started to be done.

Seeing his state, his grandma sent him to the garden, “Maybe nurturing the plants will help you out, may mother nature guide you to your heart’s desired home”. And so, he did. Ushijima spent the whole weekend in the garden. He would wake up just as the sun rose, eat breakfast, stretch, so he didn’t lost habit, and went to the garden. There, he would spend his whole morning and afternoon, since his grandma warned their coach Ushijima would be busy and needed to drop that weekend’s practice. He thanked her for that.

Each gardening action he took, he thought about something Satori did. Or some moment they shared. Or anything related to Satori and came to the conclusion he was always mixing his name with things. Was it a childhood memory or one of their friends’ situation. Satori never caught his full attention, because he was in the small details. He was in the apple tree with its red fruits just like his hair. He was in the ants trying to eat his lettuce, but Satori didn’t quite like eating so he would only eat “something made by mothers, be it mine or yours”.

Tendou was in each _anime_ opening he listened and each Shounen Weekly Jump he borrowed and end up reading the ads before the actual story (in his defense, the ads were so well made he felt bad ignoring them). Tendou was in almost every funny anecdote he had in high school because he was there to live them with Ushijima. Satori was the easiest answer to anything, but the less obvious one simply because he was always present, and you never really notice the things that are already mixed with the background.

Satori was such a fixed part of Wakatoshi’s routine and life, it was almost possible to forget he was there. But, of course, Satori was loud and pushing, so you could never forget or pass without noticing him. And thank God to that.

And it was all there. In each random situation Wakatoshi’s brain refused to let go because of unknown reasons that finally made an appearance.

It made sense how Ushijima’s preferences were showed all the time and himself ignored all of them.

As once, when Satori was rambling about his _manga_ characters and asked him to point which he liked the most between two boys, even though Ushijima didn’t even know the _manga’s_ title at the time, he chose the boy with red and white hair. “Toshi-kun, why did you choose Todoroki?"

“Well, I don’t have any character traits to base my choice on, so I choose by hair color.”

“Hohoho, you like white hair, Toshi-kun? Does it mean you like older women? Or it just means you love your granny?”

“No, I liked the bright red part better.”

“So, you don’t love your granny nor like older women, Toshi-kun?” Wakatoshi never knew if Satori was joking or not, but if it was about grandmother love it probably wasn’t a joke. No one joked about grandmas, right?

Ushijima was shocked by the question. Of course, he loved his grandma, she raised him and until these days took care of him and she was a sportive woman that didn’t even look like her age. About the older women that weren’t his mother or grandma, he never considered it. “Of course, I love my grandmother.”

Satori put some silence between them after that and went back to his reading, uncommonly quiet. While observing him for a few minutes, Wakatoshi saw his cheeks red as strawberries just like the first years in the locker room. He didn’t understand the sudden embarrassment from Tendou’s side but refused to comment. He felt himself pleased with the reddened face, it matched Satori’s hair. And Ushijima didn’t know why he liked it enough to keep quiet, but now he knew.

He liked embarrassed and cheeky Satori because Satori only got embarrassed when he said something regarding _their_ love status. Ushijima liked red hair because it was Satori’s color and Satori said he was funny because he liked Wakatoshi. There wasn’t any flaw to it. He couldn’t run nor hide from the truth now that he knew it.

Their stretching position next to each other after every practice for three years, their friendship, so awkward at first but so natural after short time, it all clicked.

How Wakatoshi felt free to show his whole house to this strange boy and to speak so much. How Tendou said he would like to come often just so he could listen to him talk more. How his smile at that first visit was different from all the others. How every time Wakatoshi seemed confused, Satori’s eyes would do this thing where they softened up somehow and his usually “devilish” features would get brighter.

How Wakatoshi didn’t know how to jog alone anymore and couldn’t even remember at which speed he used to run. How all the small details, not only in his school life, were deeply touched by red locks, loud demeanor and a high-spirited being.

And his dreams made sense. Each random or volleyball-related night vision in which Tendou was by his side. Didn't matter where or how. Satori was the most denotative meaning of ‘hidden in plain sight’.

His whole confusion was a charade and the answer was always under his own nose. Or dormitory, since Tendou slept in the floor below. Better late than ever, since it was their last year and he could have lost his chance now and agonize in curiosity for eternity.

That weekend could come to an end at any time now, he was excited to see Satori. He felt just like he usually felt before hitting a perfect spike. Nothing could beat Miraculous Boy Wakatoshi, as Tendou said. Of course, he would have to pay those missing practice days, but it was worth it? Satori was worth it, for sure. And he even called more than ten times to make sure Wakatoshi was okay. Wakatoshi’s cellphone was in silent mode forever, but, beside his mother’s number, Satori was the only one able to ring. The ring was the opening of the first _anime_ Tendou made him watch. Mirai Nikki it was, Semi called it “nutter’s thing” at the time and called Tendou out for showing such “wrecked thing” to their captain. If he only knew the things he watched later...

When Wakatoshi set his head on his pillow later that night, he felt anxious. He wanted to see Satori and tell him all the things he realized, but he feared “falling over” alone. He was so used to being accompanied by Tendou at everything that falling in love with anyone besides him wouldn’t make sense. Falling in love without Satori being there to fall with him was the scariest thing to him. Just as he was scared of Hinata Shouyou and Tsukishima Kei in that match.

**X**

After their morning classes and just as Ushijima saw Tendou coming to search him so they could lunch, his heart did little flips like balls being rolled up. He was a bit mesmerized. He didn’t think it through. He wasn’t even sure how to bring up the matter. Satori realized something about him was off that day. “Toshi-kun, let’s eat outside”.

Ushijima hummed in agreement and they followed to the external schoolyard. There, after picking a table and, as each of them started undoing their lunch bags, Wakatoshi was not breathing. Two more minutes of this tension and he might choke. Which didn’t make sense (like anything ever did beside volleyball), since there wasn’t anything near them that could give off such tense vibes.

“Toshi-kun, I’ve never seen you so quiet, and that is something to say about you, right? Your quieter than your usual. Is something bothering you?”

Ushijima didn’t know nor did he like to lie, but his silence wasn’t hiding anything either. His tension was making him start to sweat and he didn’t enjoy eating like that. Speaking now was the only viable option.

“Satori, do you feel this tense line between us? I feel it, but I can’t name it. Can you?”

“Hohoho, Toshi-kun, do you want to fight?” His words were joking, but his tone was anxious. His body language was tense. Satori was just as nervous. Good. Then they were in this one together too. This could smooth then.

“Satori, after this weekend, I realized we are friends, good ones even, but we could obtain better results as partners”. Tendou raised his head abruptly, his eyes three times bigger if it was even possible, and he wasn’t gaping just so the food he was chewing didn’t fall out, but it gave the same effect as if he was. He raised one of his hands as a sign for Wakatoshi to wait, apparently, and so he did. After some more chewing and as he gulped the rest, Satori seemed ready to speak.

“You should chew 42 times each side of your mouth, so you don’t develop gastritis, Satori”. For some reason, Ushijima was feeling rather well speaking Tendou’s first name so many times. It sounded nice in his tongue somehow.

“Toshi-kun, you should be thankful I didn’t choke in my food and just dropped dead right here without answering to your confession”. He then proceeded to drink some water before continuing. “I fully agree we should date; I was getting anxious tics just from the possibility of being one-sided. Good thing your mom and granny like me, I think that did the trick, right? It was totally your granny who pushed you though, right, Toshi-kun?”

And it was so easy. So easy. “It looks so easy, now, right? Toshi-kun, were you lost and confused and trying to keep it a secret? I tried too, but Semi and Reon and Hayato caught me on my bullshit right away. They kept bothering me about it. Awful people those ones.”

But Ushijima wasn’t really caring about anything. He was so free. His emotions have overtaken him, and he was almost flying. How they take it from there he didn’t know, it didn’t matter. They found their way until this moment; they could find their way to anywhere.

They weren’t hiding from themselves anymore, everything could be solved then. With mother’s sweets, grandma’s love and a bit of a red mess, everything could work.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and please tell me your thoughts about it ^^  
> Until the next one


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